Access Controls on DAO and GCR Nodes

Enforcing Sovereign-Grade Authentication, Authorization, and Role Isolation Across NSF Governance Infrastructure

9.6.1 Why Fine-Grained Access Control Is Foundational

NSF’s infrastructure supports:

• DAO governance of simulation, clause, and credential systems

• GCR node deployments acting as regional sovereign foresight environments

• Sensitive execution involving treaties, disaster funds, and AI-agent policy interactions

Compromise of any control surface can lead to:

• Clause override

• Simulated disinformation

• VC issuance abuse

• DAO proposal hijack

• Policy misalignment at the global or institutional level

Thus, zero-trust access control, scoped by role, jurisdiction, credential status, and simulation context, is mandatory across NSF’s control surfaces.

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9.6.2 NSF Access Control Model Overview

NSF implements:

Layer	Access Mechanism
Nodes (GCR and DACs)	DID-authenticated access, credential-bound execution scopes
DAOs	VC-gated participation, quorum-based governance isolation, ZK-verified vote credentials
Clause Execution	Role-constrained invocation via credential proofs and simulation validation
Simulation Tools	Access limited to credentialed agents, TEE-bound runners, or treaty-verified analysts
Credential Issuance	Requires authorized DID + domain-limited VC signer privileges

All access control decisions are cryptographically enforced, auditable, and scoped to execution logs.

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9.6.3 DID-Based Node Access Control

All NSF nodes use decentralized identifiers (DIDs) to control:

• Who can deploy, monitor, or update a node

• What simulations can be run

• What clause repositories are available

• What credential registries can be written to

Every access request is evaluated using:

• Issuer trust graph

• Simulation-authenticated policy scopes

• Signed time-based nonce tokens

• Credential intersection proofs

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9.6.4 Domain-Scoped Role Enforcement

Roles are tied to:

• Clause domains (e.g., climate.risk.flood)

• Jurisdictions (e.g., NSF-CAN, NSF-MZ)

• Simulation template classes

• VC schema tags

• Time windows and clause lifecycles

This allows NSF to prevent:

• Actors executing clauses beyond their domain

• Cross-jurisdictional attacks or misrepresentation

• Replay of previously valid credentials in new governance contexts

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9.6.5 DAO-Level Access Isolation

DAOs are protected through:

• VC-based membership proofs

• Tiered voting permissions based on credential rank or simulation track record

• Multisig delegation with expiration logic

• Role-bound quorum scoping (e.g., only HealthDAO members vote on OutbreakSim clauses)

• Proposal input sanitization via simulation validators

DAO interfaces themselves are:

• DID-authenticated

• ZK-enabled for private participation

• Attestation-anchored to prevent interface spoofing

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9.6.6 Simulation Access Gatekeeping

Simulators may only be accessed by:

• TEE-verified runners

• VC-authenticated researchers

• Authorized treaty monitors

• Regional simulation officers

• Clause-bound agents with prior approval

Simulations are classified by sensitivity and policy class:

Class	Requirement
Public	Open access with audit trail
Restricted	VC + DAO approval
Classified	TEE-only execution with sealed outputs
Treaty-Zone	Triggered only by multi-party consensus

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9.6.7 Credential Issuer Controls

Credential issuance can only occur if:

• The issuer DID is valid and trusted by the issuing DAO

• The issuance script is bound to clause or policy outputs

• VC type is approved in schema registry

• Signature uses post-quantum ready scheme with Merkle-linked issuance logs

• Revocation pipeline is initialized

Credential signing keys are air-gapped or HSM-backed, with rotation and audit policies enforced by governance contracts.

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9.6.8 Cross-Domain Role Intersection Controls

Users holding multiple credentials may:

• Only invoke logic within the intersection of role scopes

• Require simulation-based validation for compound clause invocation

• Trigger conditional DAO alerts if cross-domain activity is detected (e.g., FinanceVC triggering HealthClause)

This prevents misuse through credential aggregation without scope verification.

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9.6.9 Emergency Lockdown and Role-Freezing Protocols

GCR and DAO nodes can:

• Freeze access for specific role types (e.g., MonitorVC in a misaligned jurisdiction)

• Enact simulation-triggered lockdowns (e.g., clause forecasting systemic shock)

• Force credential revocation and DAO proposal quarantine

• Seal node APIs except for attested enclaves

All lockdowns are versioned, logged, and reviewable via audit smart contracts.

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9.6.10 A Defense-in-Depth Model for Global-Scale Governance

NSF access control mechanisms ensure:

• Institutional resilience under stress

• Tamper-proof credential logic

• DAO governance with scope-bounded integrity

• Clause execution tightly bound to credential legitimacy

• Jurisdictional firewalls for sovereign autonomy and disaster containment

Access is never assumed. Execution is never silent. Control is composable, cryptographic, and simulation-aware—from proposal to clause to credential to node.